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Post by rueful on Jan 25, 2009 22:32:20 GMT
Yes, other than that one scene where he is so evil and nasty (or two scenes, if you count killing his own daughter), he's pretty much the only man I would have chosen out of the bunch. Because I would have had my pick, I'm sure, if I'd been there.
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Post by lizap on Jan 25, 2009 23:41:23 GMT
tipou, your comments on the previous page just cracked me up! You express so well what I'm sure many of us felt while watching this the first time. Still, I found Rufus' Agamemnon to be very compelling and incredibly gorgeous, so I consider it worth the torture of sitting through (with the Fast Forward at the ready). This really was an exceptionally clumsy production all around (with the exception of Rufus). There were a couple of moments in this when his manner of delivery reminded me of Anthony Hopkins.
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Post by tipou on Jan 25, 2009 23:51:49 GMT
tipou, your comments on the previous page just cracked me up! You express so well what I'm sure many of us felt while watching this the first time. Still, I found Rufus' Agamemnon to be very compelling and incredibly gorgeous, so I consider it worth the torture of sitting through (with the Fast Forward at the ready). This really was an exceptionally clumsy production all around (with the exception of Rufus). There were a couple of moments in this when his manner of delivery reminded me of Anthony Hopkins. HAAH! i was trying to find out who he reminded me of!!! thank you!!!! not in the looks, but in his play. i read that rufus is a fan of fellow welsh sir anthony (so am i, not welsh, but a fan), so it might have been a ressource for him. after all, mr. hopkins also has the ability to always be a great player even in mediocre production, so he might be an inspiration whenever an actor is stuck in such a fiasco, and is still professional enough to care about doing a good job. ahhh i have to go back. i still have to see the bath scene, and now i need it desperately. |
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Post by rueful on Jan 26, 2009 0:02:12 GMT
Just pause, for a looooooong time, on the pretty, pretty view before he and Clytemnestra have their little conversation.
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Post by peach on Jan 26, 2009 1:55:39 GMT
Way tooooooooooo much going on there, it's obscene how good he truly is. I like to pause after their little conversation and its outcome.
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Post by tipou on Jan 26, 2009 2:16:32 GMT
oh my good, this is wicked.
i mean, we should not enjoy these last moments AT ALL. this is baaaaaaad.
yet, as he was growling at clytemnestra to mind her business... ouhhhhhhhh. insane. totally INSANE. the body, the eyes, the voice.... AHHHHHHHHHHH......
did anyone ever question why he was considered a perfect baddie? oh boy. talk about the dark side. i might very well go to hell now. he is that gooooood.
we were mentioning anthony hopkins, earlier... i have this scale of favourite baddies, like darth vader, and computer hal in "2001, a space odyssey", and hannibal lector (former #1). on account of these last scenes, rufus is now my #1 one baddie as agamemnon.
but the worst part (for my soul, that is) is that i still found him awfully sexy throughout. while beating hannibal the cannibal as the most despicable being ever.
can you imagine what that does to my personal system of values? i mean, a s&m relationship with the tasmanian devil would be a moral improvement from there.
oh my good god in heaven save me.
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Post by peach on Jan 26, 2009 2:34:20 GMT
I know how he hates playing villians on horses, (that just makes me laugh in itself, funny guy) any way, I just caught The Illusionist again, the scene where Jessica Biel comes to the Castle and he takes a drink, they talk he yells, then slaps her. The intensity in his eyes is scary, from being a man who is on edge and just a tad angry with her, to the face slapping scene he is scary as hell. But still sexy, and I still root for him, because in his mind he feels he's doing the right thing . I think Leoplod is a sympathetic person with one hell of a temper. He's just a little delusional is all. But he's not an outright villian to me.
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Post by rueful on Jan 26, 2009 18:20:23 GMT
I also sometimes wonder at how I'm drawn to some of the dark and violent characters he plays. However, the screen is a distancing mechanism, which makes it much easier to admire safely. Also, such movies don't just show him in violent rages but in more reasonable scenes, as when Leopold talks about bringing society into a more modern scientific era. (Unfortunately, such periods of quiet vulnerability and/or sweetness are how real life batterers can draw women in.) Finally, as all have mentioned numerous times, he brings such humanity (instead of wearing his heart on his sleeve he wears it in his eyes) that I could even pity, for example, Aggamemnon as he was deciding to kill his daughter. However, although I find Aggamemnon unbelievably sexy on screen, I'm sure a real life encounter with such a man would terrify me.
Fortunately, to get back to the shallow, as I always like to do, I can usually put such heavy thoughts aside and just enjoy the stellar performance and the prettiness. And if the powers that be ever let him do comedic, light roles and heroes, as he'd like, I'm sure I will be equally drawn to those fellows.
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Post by dirtygirldiva on Jan 26, 2009 18:31:46 GMT
I love Ru, but I have yet to see him play someone that can rival Col. Tavington in "The Patriot". I mean when he sliced Heath Ledger's character to death, I was rooting for him, and when he almost killed Ben Martin in the end..I was rooting for him...when he shot the younger brother? I was rooting for him...I even rooted for him when he ordered the church full of people burned to the ground.
Now how is that for going to hell in a handbasket?
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Post by tipou on Jan 26, 2009 18:33:25 GMT
never ever would i be able to pity that character. he CHOSE his power over his child, oh alrite, it did affeect him ( the least that could be expected from that monster) to kill his beloved little daughter, but in the end she was nothing than another pawn in his hands.
and i certainly cannot pity him after he raped his sister in law, in front of her husband too!
and the fiendish way he answered clytemnestre when she told him she had come for her daughter... have you seen the way he looked at her when he said "she's not here?" like it was a big joke or something, and that this woman mourning her child was totally stupid.
oh yes, he was a tipou magnet, for sure. talk about alpha male !!!but i am very upset ast myself for not having hated the character more!
reallyk i still got chills thinking about those sequences. after over 3 hours of total boredom, those were quite unexpected, and emotionally violent. i still maintain the opinion that rufus sewell was the only actor actually awake all through the production, but at the end... boy. he was no longer agamemnon, he was playing the role of a tsunami.
what an actor. geez. i go from surprise to surprise. what a change from the usual hollywood fare. even when he played lestat the vampire - a role that rufus should have had i insist - tom cruise was eons away from ever coming close to rufus' agamemnon, and he never could.
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Post by rueful on Jan 26, 2009 18:36:11 GMT
Well, I think much of the population might root for Mel to get it.
But Jason Isaacs does have that mesmerizing quality we Ru-fans seem to like.
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Post by lizap on Jan 26, 2009 20:07:18 GMT
never ever would i be able to pity that character. he CHOSE his power over his child, oh alrite, it did affeect him ( the least that could be expected from that monster) to kill his beloved little daughter, but in the end she was nothing than another pawn in his hands. (snip) and the fiendish way he answered clytemnestre when she told him she had come for her daughter... have you seen the way he looked at her when he said "she's not here?" like it was a big joke or something, and that this woman mourning her child was totally stupid. oh yes, he was a tipou magnet, for sure. talk about alpha male !!!but i am very upset ast myself for not having hated the character more! I saw these passages a little differently. With the killing of his daughter, I think we have to factor in their beliefs in the gods and destiny. I almost felt as though Aggie (sorry!) felt he had no choice. You know, when he said, 'Of course they do' to the edict that he had to be the one to kill her . . . I don't think you can interpret it in a modern context. I think he really felt that his only route was to be 'obedient'. As for the tub scene and his reply to Clytemnestra, 'She's not here', I thought it was much more complex than finding her stupid and her comment a joke. I thought it contained all of the emotional complexity involved in the act, from profound bitterness to a kind of scathing self-rebuke -- as if he could see the bitter joke, and was also aware that it was on himself and he was the instrument of his own downfall. As for feeling bad about not hating him more, I think you are too hard on yourself. That performance within that scenario was incredibly powerful. You know what they say about power being the ultimate aphrodysiac. I did lie awake myself after watching it, and contemplate whether the fact that I found him so sexy meant I was perverse. But as rue said, we're processing it all from a safe distance and would probably not react that way encountering a real life person of such brutality. And besides, a real life person of such brutality would not be that beautiful, because only Rufus is that beautiful. You have to make allowance for yourself for that. |
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Post by rueful on Jan 26, 2009 20:15:52 GMT
Excellent point, lizap, about his belief in the gods. It was in a way a self-serving belief, because he thought their will was that he was destined to rule the world, but I really do think he believed it.
I read way he said, "she's not here," as him trying to figure out what to say. He kind of drew it out, and looked at her very warily the way you would when you were thinking how to answer a question that you really didn't want to.
Isn't it great that he brings so much to the table that we can all see different things?
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Post by peach on Jan 27, 2009 1:21:32 GMT
DGD, take a look at The Illusionist again, it's creepy the way he can turn on a dime. His eyes, turn so sinister and steely, all the while spewing his venom, then watch them soften. His whole face changes, I can see where women would be charmed by him, I find Leopold sympathetic to a point, as I've said before. I think in his heart he thought he was doing the correct thing just going about it the wrong way.
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Post by tipou on Jan 27, 2009 5:09:31 GMT
LIZAP: thanks for your feed back.
since my reaction had been so emotional, and after reading your post, i watched those "bits" again tonight, and of course i saw another layer of play that i had not seen yesterday, all shocked that i was by the sudden violence in the screenplay, and by the sudden rufus tsunami let loose upon the rest of the inane production.
i saw the sense of fate falling upon agamemnon when he brings himself to kill his child. i had totally overlooked the comment "of course,they do", which makes all the difference. after all, the gods responded to the sacrifice, and the winds came...
i saw also the very madness in his eyes when confonted by his wife. i saw more of the trapped and damned beast than of the savage killer in his " she is not here" response.
it is not a coincidence that this madness, latent all along, is fully revealed after the sacrifice of his daughter.
having himself destroyed his only link to true humanity, he is no longer human, and so becomes a tool of war and destruction, at the mercy of the gods. he has lost his soul, and he was dead long before clytemnestra killed him,
he died along with his daughter on the sacrificial table. after that, he was in hell, and wishing to bring the world in hell with him.
yes, quite a performance. too bad it is wasted in such a pitiful excuse for a movie.
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